When the “Iron City” links up with Los Angeles no weak emcees are safe! Dropping today is Iron Angeles, the eleven track LP that combines Reagan Era Records lynchpin Dios Negasi on rhymes with production from Pittsburgh’s Tone Fultz. First single “What It Is” (also featuring a verse from Reagan Era’s Skrillz Dior) is hard-as-nails, head-nodding boom-bap greatness. As the producer states “though the Steel City is a cloudy and dark place and Los Angeles is known for its sunny weather, the two have a long history of creating legendary music together including Mel-Man and Sam Sneed’s work with Dr. Dre and Bud’Da’s producing ‘Bow Down’ for Westside Connection.” This extends to the album voice-over which makes the project feel like a long-lost blaxploitation action flick of the grimiest proportions.
Listen to “What It Is” ft. Skrillz Dior
While Dios Negasi is known for producing his own tracks (including the recent single “Domingre Gang” featuring Young Zee) and Tone Fultz also rocks the mic in his alter-ego Messiah Of Madness, both artists stick to one role here. As Tone relates, “Dios and I have been like brothers over the past few years. I come to Los Angeles regularly to dig records, and he mentioned he was slowing down on production to focus more on rhyming. Meanwhile I was in a producer zone so I started cooking up beats specifically for this project. I came to visit when a bunch of tracks and as we cooked up in the studio, members of Reagan Era came through and it was a totally organic process.”
